Pages

Friday, 30 May 2014

When I wrote my review of Basilisk, I had a lot to say about
80s-style anime marketed in the West as ‘adult’, and how juvenile it all was.
While Ninja Scroll was released in 1993, on some level it was my point
of reference. Basilisk is very much connected to Ninja Scroll –
it was an adaptation of the source that seems to have inspired Ninja Scroll,
a novel entitled Kouga Ninpuuchou or ‘The Kouga Ninja Scrolls’; the
aesthetics are similar; and both concern a variety of fighting ninja with
outlandish magical powers.

And Ninja Scroll contains much of what I decried there – that endlessly
juvenile attempt to seem grown-up and serious by including lots of blood,
unpleasant rape scenes that are clearly meant to titillate and objectify,
rather ugly pointy-chinned designs even on the good-looking characters and
macho themes of revenge-killing with hypermasculine baddies.

And yet, for all I thought it would be full of values and stylistic choices
I can’t stand and often have to struggle against when I explain how rich and
varied anime can be...I liked Ninja Scroll. More than I liked Basilisk.
It even moved me more than Sword of the Stranger, while objectively not
being as well-made or as thematically appealing.

A mercenary swordsman with a past as a respected ninja saves a girl from a
thug trying to rape her. When the thug goes for revenge, the swordsman – Jubei –
is drawn into a conspiracy to steal gold from a mine to fund shadowy
organisations. It is an operation Jubei coincidentally was involved with some years
ago, and which has led to the leader of the sinister ninja group charged with
smuggling the gold having a grudge against him. With help from
the rape victim – herself a kunoichi, a female ninja, who rather absurdly has a
body so full of poison that a kiss or embrace will kill a man – and from a funny
little man who works for the Bafuku, Jubei fights. He fends off a sequence of attacks from
outlandish ninjas who can do things like literally sink into shadows and send
massive amounts of electricity out of their body and down little wires. Finally, he goes up against the formidable Genma, leader of the Eight Devils of Kimon.

It’s all pretty absurd, and there’s something very painful about the
character trope of pushing others away lest they get hurt made so literal with
a woman who inadvertently kills people when she has sex with them. And
yet...somehow, in the details and the character interactions, it works. The
chemistry between Jubei and the kunoichi Kagerou is often absurdly overt yet
sparks superbly and is believable throughout, even after awful objectifying
rape sequences. The little Yoda-like government agent is actually funny, and
endearing despite his acerbic nature and unsightly appearance. Jubei is the quiet
type, but his cynicism, refusal to do as others want him to and his very
shounen fighting style of largely taking a terrible beating but then winning in
a flash are oddly fun. And while the ending is a bit unsatisfying – Viserys ain’t
got nothing on this – the overall plot is quietly clever and paced right to sit
between all-out action and mystery, and the minor character get fleshed out in
remarkably little screentime.

Much
about Ninja Scroll is deplorable and childishly gratuitous. Parts of it
would be embarrassing to show to the uninitiated, and I would certainly be
worried that it would confirm negative stereotypes of anime in the right – or wrong
– context. But there’s a reason it was one of the big anime films of the
nineties, not that far behind Akira and Ghost in the Shell in
Western reception. And a large part of that is that the writing is genuinely
good. It was to some extent despite myself – but I absolutely did enjoy Ninja
Scroll, and appreciate its place in the history of anime’s Western
popularity, even if, yes, I would be much more comfortable if the bare breasts
and rape and splattering blood had been left out in development (not censored,
the worst possible choice). Not because these things shock me, but the exact
opposite – because they are banal and obvious: it is the ‘adult content’ that
so often makes the property childish.

3 comments:

Sorry, but this is completely off-topic, I just picked a review at random since I don't know where else to post this. I've been following your blog for a while, never commented so far though. And every time I come back to check whether there's a new entry that interests me, I hope that you've finally reviewed Berserk (I'd prefer a review of the manga of course, but one of the anime would be fine too, for a start). I've been hoping for quite some time now, and just now I had a brilliant idea: dude, why don't you simply ask him? I don't even mind if you tear it to shreds, say it's the worst or just mediocre (I'm a Berserk fanboy myself). I just want to know whether you've seen/read Berserk and what you think of it. And of course, in case you haven't, if there is a chance that review it any time in the near future.

Hope this isn't too annoying for you since it's completely unrelated to the review and kinda random. Also, I enjoy reading your blog a lot.

Hi! Don't worry about commenting here - thank you for showing an interest!

The truth is that I've only seen two episodes of Berserk so far. It's on my (long) list and of course I'm familiar with Guts' design, but as yet I just haven't gotten around to it.

I will, though - it's definitely one that I plan to get to. So please do wait until I've seen one of the anime adaptations. Admittedly I'm not reading very much manga at the moment so it'll probably be the animated version first - but if I love it, I'll be checking out the manga too.

Awesome! Another thing to look forward to. I'll definitely post another comment then.Btw, I would suggest that you watch the series first, not the movies. The movies seem to be more catered towards people who are already familiar with Berserk.

Welcome to Adziu's small corner

Welcome to my little blog, here in this small corner.
Over the years I have seen a few hundred animated series and movies, and the purpose of this blog is to house my impressions. This is not intended to be a daily blog with impressions of each episode: I write my thoughts only after viewing something complete. Several have been imported from previous blogs dating back to 2005 - as well as drawing from journals from as early as 1999!
Now, please do sit, enjoy the fire, have a mug of something warm and put in a comment or two.